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Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Entwined: Combined Review!

Entwined by Heather Dixon

ISBN: 978-0-06-200104-7

Pages: 472

Appearance:

Summary:

Come and mend your broken heart here.

Azalea is trapped. Just when she should feel that everything is before her . . . beautiful gowns, dashing suitors, balls filled with dancing . . . it's taken away. All of it.The Keeper understands. He's trapped, too, held for centuries within the walls of the palace. And so he extends an invitation.Every night, Azalea and her eleven sisters may step through the enchanted passage in their room to dance in his silver forest.But there is a cost.The Keeper likes to keep things.Azalea may not realize how tangled she is in his web until it is too late.

Hey guys! This is our first combined review featuring Enchanted by Heather Dixon. Jenn was reading this book when I requested it from the library...I kinda forgot that we were reading the same book, but once I figured that out we decided that we should try a combined review. So here goes nothing. Expect a lot of “comments.” Green: RivPink: Jenn

Who’s your favorite character?

Wow Jenn...Definitely Bramble or Clover. Azalea I felt was too patronizing and confused after her Mother’s death that she fell into the Keeper’s trap. I love Bramble because she’s so fiery and audacious, it’s hard not to love her. Clover is just so CUTE. She’s so shy and soft spoken, but under the guidance of her love she blossoms into a beautiful girl. <3

Clover or Azalea...or Bramble….or maybe the twins….or maybe Lily cuz they’re cute :D SO HARD TO CHOOSE. Clover because I love how she’s so shy and sweet and stutters but stops for her love (aww….) I like how Bramble is head-strong and determined, just a natural-leader (perhaps even more so than her sister Azalea). She’s also a trouble maker which is always...interesting to read. In fact, during one holiday gala she lead all the children to hide behind a Christmas tree because they wanted to spy on the ball….hehe :D Azalea...Azalea, her leadership and deep love for her family makes it hard for her to choose what’s right and wrong, which I think makes her a realistic character (but Riv over here, obviously doesn’t agree with me, to each their own opinion, oh yea I went there)

(Oh okay girl, I see how it is)

I like how she takes charge of the situation, trying to keep her family together after her mother’s death, keeping true to her mother’s promise. LOYALTY!!

Why do you think the King had them grieve for such a long period of time?

Because his wife died? Jenn what question is this? STOP WRITING, you’re making me feel bad!!!! Stop being so philosophical!!!!! >.<

I think that the King was trying to show his respects to his wife and keep true to the grieving rituals of the time because the mother was very big with keeping promises, and love. Because the King is a guy, he probably didn’t understand that the best thing wouldn’t be to restrain the girls during their grieving period. Everyone knows what happens when you try to control someone, they rebel by dancing.

Do you think the ending was confusing?

It was a nice sweet ending, but the part before was like OMGAWD NOOO. That part was like getting bombarded with

I liked how the ending was so sweet with the weddings and the happy ending but the part before that was chaotic with all the stuff going on, so I’m not sure if that was intentional or not.

Do you think the Mother reappearing at the end was a little unreasonable?

I felt that Mother’s appearance was something I needed to pull everything together. I had pieced parts of the story and legend together after Keeper’s true identity was revealed, but I was still confused on some level, unlike Jenn who knows the ending cause she’s sooooo smart. XD Mother’s reappearance tied everything together and gave me a glimmer of hope that everything was going to alright.

I liked how she foreshadowed what might happen at the end. That it’s all going to be okay instead of being forever this chaotic and hopeless especially when the Keeper’s true identity is revealed.

Did you think the ending was cheesy?

A bit, I mean there is going to be three weddings, so three sisters get their happily ever after.

Nope not a bit...but I’m kinda a cheesy person….so I guess it is kinda

If that made any sense at all, please tell me :D

Do the think the Keeper was too unrealistic?

The Keeper’s personality was certainly very interesting. It wasn’t that he was unrealistic, the story is based off the legendary story of the Twelve Dancing Princesses so it’s open to as crazy and unrealistic as the author would like. But seriously, he creeps me out waaay too much

I think he was meant to be unrealistic because he’s kinda, strange, and unrealistic...that’s his entire personality. So it was kinda expected to be interesting and unique given his circumstances and that they only see him at the pavilion because he’s trapped always struck me as strange.

Was the Keeper’s identity too predictable?

Again, Jenn is some physic hamster who can magically predict the ending and everyone’s secret identity. I had honestly no idea, call me gullible, but I totally bought the fact that he was just someone who got caught in the Old King’s curse. At most I would have thought that he was an enemy trying to get revenge.

I thought he was predictable, but that’s just me once again because I know Riv didn’t see it as predictable. I just thought that because he seemed so mysterious and strange that it was kinda obvious there was something up with him. I mean what kind of person is forever trapped in a secret world with the name ‘Keeper,’ strange don’t you think?

Did you think there were too many characters?

Just a tad bit. I had a bit of trouble keeping track of all the characters, especially the suitors who all came to try to win the hand of Azalea. I mean, there were like 4-5 guys? The only guys I remember, are the guys mentioned in the next question, the King, and duh, the Keeper. I think the girls were a bit easier to remember since they all had some sort of a flower name and I knew the story was based off The Twelve Dancing Princesses.

Coming into the story I knew that there were going to be many characters involved simply because there are 12 daughters to start with so just a couple additional characters would start to confuse. The girls were relatively easy to remember because they all went in alphabetical order in order of birth and named after plants, but the suitors that came to impress Azalea...how many was that? like 4 or 5? So I completely forgot about those except when they were brought up repeatedly towards the end. Even though there were many girls, I liked how the author designed it so that each one (or at least the older ones) had a different personality. It shows diversity within the same family, which is kinda cool.

Lord Teddie: Hilarious, very entertaining, think of him as a joker/fool at court. That might be a bit harsh, but he’s got that very clumsy personality that makes him very lovable. Oh! Like a teddy bear!

Captain Bradford: Ideal princely figure. Put any one of your “knights in shining armor” and I guarantee that he will fit the bill.

Minister Fairweller: First impression, “Dude you need some serious color in your life.” Then, seriously, LEARN TO FEEL! It’s not that hard really. After getting to know him better, I ship it. I ship it. (secretive smile)

I thought Lord Teddie was very funny especially since he is from another part of the world, so he has certain quirks about him that distinguishes him from the other suitors. He is also quite clumsy and stumbles over himself a lot...both figuratively and literally. Captain Bradford is the typical longed after romantic suitor. From the beginning I shipped him and Azalea together. I mean he’s just so kind and caring, he fits perfectly with the family...why not? Minister Fairweller gave me mixed feelings because at the beginning he seemed so dull, like that suitor that is just so horrible and wrong for the girl, but then you start to get to know him and it’s just like...awww he’s so secretive and shy that it explains why he seems so different in public.

Who’s your OTP of the story? Azalea, Bramble, or Clover? (Spoiler on who gets married)

CLOVER or BRAMBLE

Clover is just so adorable and her man was so unexpected but I think it shows a lot of character growth. Yup, used some fancy English class terms right there!

Bramble on the other hand is such a fiery character, her love life is just fun to read about. Especially since I think the pairing is so adorable.

Why not Azalea? Well, I just think it was pretty obvious who she was going to end up with and the whole romance was too stereotypical with a damsel (kinda in stress) and a rescuer in shining armor.

I really liked Clover because she has such a shy personality and for her to be in love, out of all of them was so unexpected and sweet. She was the youngest of age, and yet she is one of the first to fall in love. It shows how everyone deserves and can have true love (awww…)...so don’t give up hope :D

Describe your emotion during the crisis of the story?

WHAT IS GOING ON? First off I was really confused at everything, probably because I got scared and started skimming instead of paying attention to every detail which I do when I get really nervous about a plot. After re-reading and process, my emotion turned into: PLEASE NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO!!!!!! (x300000) Dunno why I picked that number, but I pretty much started freaking out and went a bit insane with all the dramatics. XD

I was so confused because it was...chaotic and I often had to go back and reread, because I maybe skipped a couple parts because I wanted to know what was going to happen at the end. But then at the end when the keeper reappears I was like...gasp...nooo DON’T DO THIS KEEPER!! so scary...O.O

Other Comments?

Would definitely recommend, it was a really great read. I finished it relatively quickly. The magic and mystery is definitely a huge plus to the overall story and I absolutely love the twist it made on the Twelve Dancing Princesses tale. I do have to say that this put a really high expectation bar for future fairytale based books and I can’t wait to see if any book matches up to or beats Entwined’s twist. One last thing, if you guys like the story of the Twelve Dancing Princesses, I’ve heard of another series by Jessica Day George which is also based off that story. The first book is called Princess of the Midnight Ball. I’ve never read it, but it sounds interesting, in case anyone wants to try it out.

I definitely recommend this book to anyone who wants to read it. Even though it’s a really big book, it was a fast read because it is kinda a mystery novel, so I wanted to know what was going to happen next so I just kept reading and didn’t want to stop. I really like how this was originally based off of the Twelve Dancing Princesses which is what intrigued me in the first place to read it. The lyrical feel throughout the entire especially when describing the magic just made it a breeze to read. I really hope you try it!

So that was our combined review! This was pretty fun, if you have any suggestions in the future or books that you wish to have double or triple (if we can get Claudz to join us) let us know down below! Other than that, we’ll see you guys in our next review! Byeeeeee!

“You forgot my birthday, too.""And mine."The girls looked miserable. The King opened his mouth, then shut it."Sir!" whined Lord Teddie. "You forgot my birthday, too!"Bramble gave a surprised laugh, then slapped her hand over her mouth, as though shocked at letting it out. The tension broke. The girls laughed sheepishly, and Lord Teddie beamed. He probably did not have many ladies think him funny. In fact, he probably got slapped by a lot of them.”

“What a rotten shilling punter!" said Bramble, tearing her bread to bits. "I can't believe he stole our things! Especially the watch! We stole that watch first, fair and square!”

“It looked like his ponytail had revolted against him," said Bramble.”

The King had no words as he strode to them. In an instant he had torn Fairweller away from Clover, wound up, and boxed Fairweller straight in the face.

"Oh, Mr. Bradford!" she said. "You're wonderful-oh-I could just kiss you!" Azalea immediately pulled back, the hot flush prickling to the very roots of her hair.